Like everyone else, I have given this thorny subject a lot of thought over the years, in particular the worrying idea that you could well be buying stolen gear if you ever bought anything second hand.
The police recommend (or certainly did a while back) marking your gear with a marker pen that only showed up under ultraviolet light. I quite liked that idea, thinking that if everyone did this, a discrete peek with one of those tiny UV torches available now (while viewing used gear at a car boot sale for instance) would clearly show the tell -tale evidence, and you could report your find to the nearest bobby.
However, it then struck me that if everyone DID mark in this way, then every item of second hand kit....legitimately for sale or not...would show glowing markings when examined. Not sure how you get round that one. Effectively, you would be left with the single benefit that you could at least recognize your own makings if you came across your gear by pure chance.
Better than nothing I guess, but not a lot. I am astonished that the insurance companies have not come up with something better, in an effort to cut their losses. A micro chip like that inserted into dogs for instance, randomly built into the fabric of each item during the manufacturing process?
We sure as hell need something to make this growing trade in stolen tackle less attractive to the scum involved.
Cheers, Dave.
